Vortices in a supersolid
Our research on the observation of vortices in a dipolar supersolid has now been published in Nature, and featured by Quanta magazine!
2025 Postdoc & PhD Openings!
We are happy to announce that our dipolar quantum gas group has Postdoc and four PhD positions open for 2025!
Austrian of the Year 2024
Francesca was crowned as the ‘Austrian of the Year’ in the research category at the Austria 24 gala by Die Presse!
Summer BBQ
Our 2024 Summer BBQ took place on the 24th of June and celebrated the many different achievements of the group!
2024 PhD Openings!
We are happy to announce that our dipolar quantum gas group has two PhD positions open for 2024/2025!
Murder Mystery Dinner
Our 2024 group dinner took place on the 18th of January at CasoinN da Giorgio restaurant, with a 1920’s Murder Mystery theme!
Glitches in supersolids: links between neutron stars and quantum matter
By emulating the connection between a rotating supersolid phase and an external solid phase, we were able to replicate “glitches” – sudden jumps in the solid angular momentum driven by quantum vortices leaving the supersolid.
Cluster of Excellence Quantum Science Austria granted
Three Clusters of Excellence in Innsbruck have been funded! With highly endowed clusters of excellence, the Austrian Science Fund FWF creates Austrian flagships of basic research. The University of Innsbruck will coordinate the Cluster of Excellence for Quantum Sciences.
Bloch Oscillations
By letting an erbium quantum droplet fall under gravity through an optical lattice, it is possible to understand the inter-atomic interactions and quantum fluctuations through variations of the Bloch oscillation.
ERC Advanced Grant DymetEr has been funded!
Our group studies dipolar quantum gases made of Erbium (Er) and Dysprosium (Dy) atoms. These extraordinarily magnetic species are a powerful new resource for reaching quantum simulation with strong connectivity, in which each atom is coupled to the other over long distances, and exploring exotic phases of matter that have no classical counterpart.
We have three labs: the ERBIUM LAB, where Er was Bose condensed for the first time ever, the Er-Dy LAB which studies quantum dipolar mixtures under a quantum-gas microscope, and the T-REQs LAB, where we trap Er atoms in arrays of optical tweezers for Rydberg physics. Recently, we have established a Theory Group aimed at studying and predicting dipolar phenomena in dipolar quantum gases and mixtures.
The group, led by Francesca Ferlaino, is jointly located at the Institute for Experimental Physics (IExP) of the University of Innsbruck and at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and it is part of the Innsbruck Center for Ultracold Atoms and Quantum Gases.
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News from the labs
For German speakers: in this month's edition of 'Sterne und Weltraum' of Spektrum magazine, you will find an article about the links between glitches in supersolids and in neutron stars, written by our very own Elena Poli, Thomas Bland, Manfred Mark, and Francesca Ferlaino, alongside frequent collaborator, Massimo Mannarelli.
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Together with our local ultracold theory collaborator Russell Bisset and external collaborator Blair Blakie and their teams, we investigate the excitation spectrum of binary supersolids, revealing new sound and Higgs modes that are unique to this system!
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Now published in the journal "Few-Body Systems"! Together with collaborators at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, we investigate the pinning dynamics of vortices in rotating dipolar supersolids.
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Group news
Die Presse - the Austrian newspaper of record - has nominated Francesca for Austria 24, the Austrians of the year in the research category! Voting is now open to the public: https://www.diepresse.com/18834314/forschung-das-sind-die-nominierten
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The first week of September 2024 marked the end of the 3 weeks of the Aurora Excellence Fellowship program and the beginning of a visit by Silvia Trabucco, who is a PhD student at Gran Sasso Science Institute in L'Aquila, Italy.
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On the 19th of August 2024, we welcomed three Masters' interns to the Theory team under the Aurora Excellence Fellowship program! Gianlorenzo DeFilippo, Matteo Olimpo and Giuseppe Puca will be with us for 3 weeks working on projects about supersolidity and lattice physics.
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Welcome and goodbye
At the beginning of October, Arina Tashchilina joined our team as a Post-Doc in the T-REQS lab. Welcome to Innsbruck, Arina!
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On the 4th of October, we said goodbye to the Theory group's visiting PhD student Tanausú Hernández Yanes! Good luck with your defense and we wish you the best in the next stage of your career, Tana!
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We said goodbye to Antonio Ortu at the end of July 2024. Dr. Ortu joined the T-REQS lab as a Post-doc in May 2022, and has now moved to Copenhagen for a scientific staff position. Good luck at your new position, Antonio!
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